A foreign currency dealer looks at a monitor in a dealing room.
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
SINGAPORE — Asia-Pacific markets rose Monday as sentiment improved around coronavirus vaccine rollouts and U.S. stimulus hopes.
Australia’s benchmark ASX 200 was up 0.74%, trimming some of its earlier gains of more than 1%. Energy and mining stocks were up — shares of Rio Tinto rose 2.08%, Woodside Petroleum was up 0.74%, Fortescue was up 4.05% and BHP added 2.55%.
Japanese markets also traded up: The Nikkei 225 was up 0.1% while the Topix index added 0.07%. South Korea’s Kospi was higher by 0.15%.
U.S. stock futures rose slightly after a record-setting session Friday on Wall Street.
Currencies and oil
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar traded at 90.794 against a basket of its peers. The dollar index fell from levels near 91.80 last week.
The U.S. dollar is expected to remain on a downtrend this week, according to currency strategists at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
“The recovering world economy undermines demand for the (dollar),” the strategists wrote in a Monday morning note. “Even if some economic data released this week is soft, we expect market participants to heavily discount it because the distribution of vaccines starting this month improves the medium-term economic outlook.”
The Japanese yen changed hands at 104.19 against the greenback while the Australian dollar traded up 0.13% at $0.7431.
Oil prices traded lower Monday morning during Asian hours. U.S. crude futures were down 0.24% at $46.15 a barrel while global benchmark Brent last traded down 0.24% at $49.13.
Source: CNBC